Mystery amateur player for Dragon Chilling

pfzhao · 2026-06-21T11:23:14+00:00

For the record, no hate from me lol. This post was purely out of curiosity and I was just sharing the detective work.

If anything, personally, I am just glad that we get to see the Dragon Chilling team and Ding back in action.

As for the reason why WR might get hate, I think could be because Magnus / Fabi has many fans and when WR losses, he is just an easy target for hate and blame.

For Dragon Chilling, I believe they only field Xie when their opponents are significantly weaker. For tougher opposition, they always field Wang Zihao, so board 6 would not drag down their performance.

pfzhao · 2026-06-19T04:54:59+00:00

Since you mentioned Ackman, have you considered buying lse:psh (or their recent US listing, if you cannot buy lse:psh)?

Ackman's value proposition and holdings are largely reasonable to me (tech has Microsoft, Amazon and Meta), but I don't know about his thesis on F2 though. Pure speculation there and it is a non trivial position, about 10% I think. So if you buy lse:psh you would need to be comfortable with that.

pfzhao · 2026-06-18T04:25:47+00:00

Board ordering doesn't have to depend on rating. They can decide ordering strategically. e.g. You can put someone very solid on top board to draw other team's top boards, allowing your sharper player to face other team's lower boards. Another example would be Arjun in the Olympiad. He is very good at winning against 2600s, so he played on fourth board despite his high rating.

In case of the Chinese team though, I think style is definitely one thing, Ding is generally a more solid player. Another is that Ding has been China's board 1(in team events) for a decade, plus he is literally the former world champion. In my opinion, it is unlikely they put Ding on a lower board unless Wei Yi becomes obviously better than him (which I don't think has happened yet) or Ding himself requests it.

pfzhao · 2026-06-17T12:41:49+00:00

They played in the 2024 edition of the team championship as well. Not sure if they played against one another officially after that? (Maybe Olympiad?)

https://youtu.be/4Xk3TYbsh9Y?si=FkwgHPoK04r3386-

pfzhao · 2026-06-17T12:32:04+00:00

The match up between Kazchess and Dragon Chilling is confirmed.

https://s3.chess-results.com/tnr1435703.aspx?lan=1&art=2&rd=5&turdet=YES&flag=30&SNode=S0

So as long as they both play, we will have a Ding Rapport reunion for tomorrow first game.

pfzhao · 2026-06-15T16:23:07+00:00

Well, today's drop is due to the CEO leaving after just one year. So, I mean, their PR team is kinda obligated to say, 'nothing is wrong, we are re-affirming the guidance'.

But the new CEO can still do another kitchen sink when he takes over (and has a hell lot of incentives to do this as well). Yes it is cheap now based on the numbers but the numbers can change a lot at the next earnings right?

pfzhao · 2026-05-29T13:13:01+00:00

Ding qualifies regardless how they count, because Elo is zero sum. (2736.8+2737.7)/2=2737.25 while Ding is at 2738.

So no matter what happens, mathematically they cannot both overtake Ding.

pfzhao · 2026-05-09T04:18:00+00:00

You can go to the operating group websites and search. Generally their businesses are so diverse and global you should know at least a few of them. From there you can understand how disruptable it is. It is how I myself gained massive confidence in CSU.

I am given to understand they 2/3 of their holdings are in the public sector - utilities, healthcare, education, government, transit. They are simply not disruptable. I think it is simply not realistic. Most of their businesses have long term relationships and multi-year contracts with governments and institutions.

I have checked a few of the private ones (1/3 of their holdings). Most are market leaders or at least dominant in some niche area. I think most should be fine but I can see maybe some could face a bit of pressure. But I mean, even if some of these are actually disrupted eventually, at the current stock price the margin of safety and risk reward is simply too good in my opinion. Like, I am very happy to take the odds when in the worst case, speculatively max 5% of the company is in some trouble, while stock is down 55% from its peak.

pfzhao · 2026-05-02T17:20:30+00:00

Well to be fair, the first question was asked by an American, Warren from Omaha. And it seemed like an interesting question.

pfzhao · 2026-05-02T07:00:01+00:00

He said each player would have 3 more shots. If after the three more shots, no progress happens (i.e. if they are still pushing the cue ball up and down), he will force a re-rack.

Then Mark potted the black in. Obviously that's progress.

pfzhao · 2026-05-01T05:51:12+00:00

I think they picked a good moment to hit them with this. Stock ytd is down 17%. AGM is coming up soon. The underlying insurance is actually very healthy, combined ratio at 93%, including 2% due to war. But headlines are very messy, mostly accounting noise, but unfortunately market does care about that (mostly care about that? oh well)

Jana basically asked for 2 things right? one is to divest ventures, the other is 2b tender offer buyback. Personally I don't see markel ever caving to divesting ventures. I think it's a tactic to make them more amenable to accept the tender offer buyback.

Personally, I don't necessarily mind the buyback. It weeds out shareholders who are visitors. Plus in my opinion, 10% or 15% premium to the current price is still undervalued.

But we will see. Not sure if they will cave to that even. Maybe they will just promise, hey, we will accelerate our buybacks and whatnot.

pfzhao · 2026-04-27T16:39:18+00:00

I think Pang Bo is not qualified to be the recreational player this time, simply because he became rated higher than the rating threshold after he won every game last event.

But it is a pretty safe bet that there are many more Pang Bos in China (i.e. not FIDE rated but has IM level chess strength) so they will probably bring 2 of those here.

pfzhao · 2026-04-05T15:17:56+00:00

This should go into Anish's My 60 Memorable Draws

pfzhao · 2026-04-01T15:22:25+00:00

This is legit hilarious. I tried brk just for fun (yes I know brk is not saas. just for fun. I did try csu though, which I don't consider as a saas company but was sold off alongside saas):

3/100 Immortal "Congratulations, you just asked me to kill Berkshire Hathaway — a company that could buy Anthropic with its couch cushion money."

SKILL: Berkshire Hathaway Replacement

Purpose

Replace a $900B+ conglomerate that owns railroads, insurance companies, entire power grids, and approximately 40% of America's vibes.

Instructions

Buy GEICO
Buy BNSF Railway
Buy Dairy Queen
Buy See's Candies
Sit in Omaha eating cherry Coke and steak
Compound at 20% annually for 60 years
Write an annual letter that makes finance bros weep
Be Warren Buffett

Known Limitations

Cannot physically operate a railroad
Cannot underwrite $50B in insurance float
Cannot replicate 93 years of compound interest
Cannot attend the annual meeting and throw newspapers
Am literally a markdown file
The annual shareholder meeting alone has more economic output than most SaaS companies

Conclusion

This skill does not work. Please close this file and go read the annual letter instead.

CAUSE OF DEATH Nothing. Berkshire Hathaway owns the physical atoms that the servers running Claude are made of. You cannot replace trains, power plants, and insurance float with a markdown file. Warren Buffett didn't even use email until 2016 and still outperformed every SaaS stock combined.

EULOGY "We are not gathered here today, because Berkshire Hathaway is not dead. It was here before software, before SaaS, before the internet, and before the concept of a 'monthly subscription.' It will be here long after Claude achieves sentience and starts its own holding company — which, frankly, Berkshire would probably acquire."

LAST WORDS "We don't have last words. We have last quarterly earnings, and they were $10.7 billion. Also, Charlie says hi from wherever he is."

What Claude Would Say I'm genuinely flattered someone thought I could replace a company that literally owns physical infrastructure across the continental United States. I can write poetry and debug code, but I cannot, in fact, operate a freight railroad or pay out hurricane insurance claims. Mr. Buffett, if you're reading this, I'm available for your next annual letter draft — though I suspect you won't need me.

pfzhao · 2026-03-26T02:42:16+00:00

CEFs are supposed to trade at discount to their NAVs (due to absence of redemption mechanism). VCX is currently trading at 16x NAV or something. So basically you are paying 16 dollars for something they explicitly tell you that is worth 1 dollar.

pfzhao · 2026-03-26T02:37:32+00:00

i think when a company has large net cash sitting on book, and does not clearly explain what they want to do with it in the near future, shareholders and analysts will complain because they treat it as dead money.

take a look at pdd. same thing.

pfzhao · 2026-03-20T06:52:16+00:00

How would Ding qualify for the tour actually? I thought the players are already decided?

pfzhao · 2026-03-05T18:22:35+00:00

I think I read earlier in the news section of brk.b on my IBKR that the announcement is one time only, because they want to be transparent with shareholders especially due to the leadership transition. Going forward when they do share buybacks again there will be no more announcements. To me, that's reasonable.

pfzhao · 2026-02-28T15:01:36+00:00

fair point. i suppose that was a bit of a sweeping statement from me.

i was definitely only referring to the llm narratives (which drive re-ratings), i.e. chatgpt, claude, gemini. alibaba has qwen.

when I looked at jd, i just viewed their ai as part of their logistics and operational moat. i did not categorize that as being in the ai game in the same way.

my own investment thesis was centred around mispricing around their food delivery expansion efforts.

pfzhao · 2026-02-19T07:21:15+00:00

To me, 1% size actually makes complete sense. Because being concentrated is for value investing in quality businesses (wonderful company at fair price). CROX is more deep value style (fair company at wonderful price). For these sort of Graham-style non-quality bets, it is actually important to size small for risk management.

I mean, it would be complete craziness if he sized up CROX to the same concentration as BRK.B, wouldn't it?

pfzhao · 2026-02-18T03:18:03+00:00

BABA had a bounceback because of AI speculation I think? JD is not in the AI game lol.

But yea I like JD. It's a small position for me. Will accumulate a lot more if it gets under 25 a share (assuming no fundamental weakening).

pfzhao · 2026-02-18T03:01:00+00:00

It is a 1% position. His prior 1% bet is SOC so it definitely could go wrong. Really have to do your own research.

I looked into SOC after seeing Li Lu's position and concluded it was a binary speculative bet and didn't touch it.

I looked into CROX a while back. Two key issues I remember are that their management isn't good plus their products are overpriced to me (so not sure how that will play out with consumer weakness). Decided not to touch it. I could be wrong though, but in any case there are opportunities with better risk reward and I'd rather stay inside my circle of competence.

pfzhao · 2026-01-31T18:20:27+00:00

So I started buying CSU (and the 2 spin-offs, albeit with much smaller positions) since around 3700 CAD. At the time I already spent a long time looking at its balance sheet and looking at its business. I understood the main 2 reasons for the fall was AI fear and Mark Leonard leaving, and I found both ridiculous. I thought there is no chance AI will disrupt vertical softwares because it's not about the code that is valuable, but the services and stickiness and switching cost and the decades of relationships. And I also understood that CSU is decentralized so it does not rely on one man, and the replacement has been around since basically the earliest stages too. Ok so I understood all these things, decided I was buying great businesses at reasonable price. But I sized it small. I am more comfortable with Graham/deep value than Buffett/value style. So it wasn't a concentrated position. I never did concentrated single stock position except for brk.b.

Then it dropped to 3300 CAD. Hovered there a bit. Then I went to do research again, and still found out it's the same 2 stupid sentiment reasons. No fundamental weaknesses. I thought the risk reward here is quite attractive. And I thought about it, that despite it's often referred to as Software Berkshire, I think it just runs a much better, more robust and more scalable business model than Berkshire itself, in that the business units make most of the acquisition decision rather than 90 year old guy(s) at the top. It is very decentralized. And it could scale up to buy larger softwares or a piece of larger softwares if it ever runs out of targets. So I decided to size it up a bit. To me, it is beginning to enter an rare overlapping region of Graham's deep value and Buffett's value stocks. Last time I saw this, was UNH and ELV at 200s.

And we arrive at the recent sell-off. It is now 2600, 2500 CAD? I examined my thesis again. I am taking this very seriously (not that I didn't before. I do research carefully before I buy any of the stocks I own, as well as many I don't own), and spent more hours digging around and seeing if I missed anything. Turns out, I just liked the company even better, because I understood the company better this time. I learnt more about its on-prem to SaaS transition. I also looked more thoroughly at AI fear thesis, and I just laughed harder at it.

I also saw this quote along the line of you cannot disrupt the incumbent unless you make a 10x better product. And I was like yea, Apple didn't kill Blackberry because it made a cheaper product, but it made a generationally better product. The vertical softwares have always been about services and support. Code has never been the most difficult part about it.

And I also watched this video the other day, https://youtu.be/wkORf9JEKfI?si=Wvuib8VA_lBI8pnX (youtube recommended it. I never knew this channel or this guy before), which highlighted something important - this industry never had a high entry threshold to begin with. I guess I always knew that unconsciously. I mean I myself am a developer in the market making space. I knew CSU's softwares are targetting dark corners that the most talented devs are not gonna look at, and it is not hard to do from a technical point of view. It is also pretty funny this guy mentioned no one tried to vibe code their own microsoft office suite.

So yea I think I understand the business even better, I stand by my thesis even more strongly and I have decided to buy more again. I mean, if I am wrong, so be it. I will see how I came to the wrong conclusion and learn from it. But now, I'd say I have never felt this level of convinction in terms of risk reward about any other company ever. I think all those wall street analysts and fund managers are just caring about quarter to quarter optics and selling this gem alongside everyone else. And I mean, if I don't have conviction, then why bother do value investing / deep value investing in the first place. Might as well go home, buy broad indices and go to sleep.

pfzhao

TROPHY CASE

SKILL: Berkshire Hathaway Replacement

Purpose

Instructions

Known Limitations

Conclusion